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Size matters: Welcome signs need correction

Vice Mayor Jim Brown has raised several issues with the town’s two new welcome signs on both ends of Longboat Key.

In an e-mail he sent to Town Manager Bruce St. Denis June 15, the retired architect explains that the general contractor hired to build the signs did several things incorrectly.

Wrote Brown: “My conversation with you last week was regarding the aesthetics of the signs and how they had not been built according to the approved drawings. My concern is that the columns appear too slender and out of proportion to the overall sign. The columns are too small. They are what is throwing off the propositions of the whole sign. They drawings call for them to be 2 foot square, and they are not. The caps are to overhang 2 inches — not 4 inches. The stone on the columns was supposed to match the stone on Town Hall. It does not. If the columns had been built 2-foot square the caps would probably be correct. The height of the signs is greater than shown on the drawings as well.”

Brown explained to St. Denis that the Florida Department of Transportation, which oversaw the project as part of the $500,000 federal stimulus grant the town accepted last year, did not do its job.

The e-mail prompted the Town Commission to reinstitute a welcome sign subcommittee at its June 17 regular workshop to work with Brown and Mayor George Spoll to make sure the signs are corrected.

Public Works Director Juan Florensa is coordinating a meeting with the contractor and FDOT to make sure the signs are corrected.